Infantry Corporal Carl Hall wrote a stunning memoir of his experiences on Okinawa, by far the bloodiest invasion in the Pacific Theater of World War II. His illustrations and written imagery complement each other. The paintings and sketches only hint at the intensity of Hall’s prose, which throbs with urgency, bitterness, and dread. For Hall and many other GIs, Okinawa was “the island of fear,” as stubborn Japanese forces, aided by a civilian population convinced that victorious Americans would slaughter them, dug in and refused to surrender.